70 Wallace'* 



the village children liked best to play beneath the shade 

 of the old oak, and that their parents knew where to seek 

 for the young truants, when they had wandered from 

 school or home. We can all enter into the feelings of 

 children, for we have been children ourselves ; we can 

 remember how the primrose and the cowslip, although 

 the gathering of them often gained for us both colds and 

 chidings ; the nest of the hedge-sparrow, or the coming 

 forth of the white thorn, were things of vast importance ; 

 what delight the finding of them imparted, and how every 

 new object powerfully excited the young mind, because 

 they had all, and each, the charm of novelty We know, 

 also, that as months and years pass on, somewhat of care 

 begins to steal across all this joyousness, as the shadow of 

 a passing cloud obscures a sunny landscape ; that the cares 

 of every day occurrence the difficulty of finding bread 

 for a large young family the father's weariness after a 

 day of labour, and the anxious feelings of the mother, are 

 soon shared in by children. They feel more than 

 any one imagines who does not vividly remember what 

 his or her feelings have been in very early life, although 

 the feelings were not, perhaps, depressed by circumstances 

 of equal trial. Time goes on, and it is not only home 

 SOITOWS that engross the mind ; if the days in which they 

 live, are stormy, and men speak of their country's 

 wrongs, the striplings aspire to aid in seeking redress ; 

 and the ardour by which their fathers are excited, 

 is reflected in them with double vividness. Thus 



